


K(ute)O(verload)

by slotumn



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adorable, Cats, Cute, Dorks in Love, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Idiots in Love, Light-Hearted, Plot Twists, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Romance, Romantic Comedy, Sleepy Linhardt von Hevring, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, no beta we die like Glenn, of sort towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23710552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slotumn/pseuds/slotumn
Summary: "Is there a...disease, or a condition, that causes a a person to think everything another person does is cute?"A.K.A. Lysithea starts finding everything about Claude cute and it's a problem.
Relationships: Lysithea von Ordelia/Claude von Riegan, Marianne von Edmund/Linhardt von Hevring
Kudos: 20





	K(ute)O(verload)

"Cute" was not a word you used to describe a full-grown man with a beard. 

Handsome. Dashing. Charismatic. Admirable. Reliable. Cocky but in an attractive way. All of those were within the understandable range, but cute was definitely not it, as far as Lysithea was concerned.

_Swoosh!_

"Alright! Bull's eye!

Claude did that celebratory middle and index finger pointing motion before pulling out another bow to aim at the targets, which were enchanted using her magic to move around how enemies might on the battlefield.

But that, that's kind of cute, she absentmindedly thought while watching him, then slammed her head backwards against the wall upon realizing what just happened.

"Lysithea?" came Claude's voice, tinged with surprise and concern. "You okay there?"

"O-of course, I'm fine, I just," she rubbed the back of her head and avoided looking towards his direction, "please get back to your target practice already."

"I will, I will, but tell me if you get tired," he replied, hitting another target. "There's plenty of other stuff to train for."

As if to demonstrate, he soon put away the bow and arrow to pick up a throwing axe, and lightly bounced back and forth between each feet while gauging the targets across the training ground.

She purposefully blanked her mind out to not think up any descriptors for the sight. 

\---

The dining hall was serving rabbit skewers, and she just so happened to sit next to Claude.

"Hey, nice seeing you here," he greeted. "This is one of your favorites, isn't it? Be sure to eat up so you can grow big and strong~"

"I told you, I'm already done growing!"

They had exchanges along those lines more times than she could count, but it kept happening again and again. She wasn't sure why she entertained him every time he initiated-- something like habit, probably.

Yet apparently it was possible to forget habits, because sitting in front him with the skewer stick in her hand, she suddenly had no idea what to do for rest of the dinner. 

Aside from eating, obviously, but Claude liked talking, too, so she would have to take that into account. And when people talked, they usually looked at each other...

She suddenly remembered that skewers weren't the most elegant dish to eat.

Snap out of it, Lysithea, she thought, taking a bite and attempting to ignore her company. There's no need to be conscious-- or at least, not specifically of him.

The food on her plate decreased at a slower rate than usual, but she managed to not look to the side until a finger poked at her shoulder. 

"If you're not going to eat that, can I have it?" Claude asked, pointing at the uneaten skewer she was holding. 

"Raphael's been rubbing off on you, I see," she replied, moving the it toward him so that he would take it.

"Hey, maybe he does have a point about how eating lots makes you stronger," he shrugged, then leaned forward to--

\--take a bite while she still held the stick.

Cute, said a traitorous voice in her head as he chewed with his cheeks full, so she immediately set the rest of the skewer over on his plate before looking away again. 

Claude was very good at carrying on a conversation by himself while she finished the side dishes and fruit juice, so the rest of dinner wasn't too awkward, thankfully. 

"If you'll excuse me, I have other things to do for the night," she muttered, standing up.

"Yeah, don't sleep too late, and-- look this way for a sec."

Once again, she forgot that turning her head also meant looking at his face, as he reached up with a napkin to wipe the side of her mouth. 

"Had some sauce smudged there," he said, grinning.

Normally, she would have retorted and said he didn't need to do that as if she was a child, that he could have just told her and she would taken care of it herself, but none of that got past her throat in the moment. 

She practically flew to her room and cursed that she noticed how his left (her right) canine stuck out in a way that emphasized his mischievous smile, all of a sudden. 

Perhaps Claude did have a point when he egged her to go to sleep at nights-- sleep deprivation must be doing funny things to her head. That was the only explanation. 

So she went to bed early that night instead of going to the library, where she would inevitably have to face him again. 

\---

She realized how bad it had gotten when she caught herself staring at Claude during war council, observing the details of how he hooked two fingers into his sleeves before rolling it up, or slightly tilted his head back an angle while adjusting his collar and cravat, while thinking all that was, you guessed it, cute. 

Avoiding him, as she was doing right now in the gardens with a certain green-haired scholar, didn't alleviate the problem at all, it turned out. 

"...Linhardt. Are you awake?"

"I am, somehow," he yawned, not even bothering to remove the open book set page-down on his face.

"I'd like to ask you a question."

"Better do it before I fall asleep again."

She shot a glare at him, fully knowing he didn't see it, before asking,

"Is there a...disease, or a condition, that causes a a person to think everything another person does is cute?"

"..."

Linhardt didn't respond or move for a good while, so she sighed and went back to trying to read her tome, thinking he had dozed off.

However many minutes later, she heard some nervous steps and rustles of fabric approaching the area, and Linhardt suddenly sat up and took the book off his face. 

"E-excuse me, Lysithea, is--"

"Hello, Marianne. Were you looking for me?"

Marianne flinched in surprise before nodding, and Linhardt actually bothered to go walk up to close her-- perhaps a little too close. 

"Yes-- the Professor wished to talk to you later today," she replied, and curled her fingers around Linhardt's as he began fiddling with her hand. "And, um...I suppose I wanted to see you, too."

"That's great, I was just thinking about how we could continue our little experiment-- maybe by napping together under that tree right there," he said, grasping her hands tighter.

"L-Linhardt..."

The healer couple stood like that for a while, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes like they were the only things left in the universe.

Lysithea cursed under her breath and just barely held back from Dark Spiking both of them. 

"By the way," Linhardt continued, leaning down a little bit, "you're really cute when you blush like that. Or when you do anything, really."

Then they kissed, and she decided that she needed to Dark Spike herself instead. 

When it was over, Marianne squeaked out another "Excuse me...!" before running off with face red like tomatoes. 

Linhardt plopped back down with a small smile, and opened up the book to put right back onto his face.

"There's your answer."

"On what kind of reaction excessive public displays of affection provokes in observers?"

"No, on what it means when you find everything about a person cute," he yawned. 

"...?"

"It means game over. You're always going to lose them, no matter what."

"That...didn't look like you losing," she said, frowning skeptically. 

"It was. I voluntarily woke up from my nap just to see her," he said, voice heavy with drowsiness. "A loss if I've ever seen one, but I'd still do it over and over again...'cause Marianne's cute..."

Lysithea bleched and went back to the tome, resolving to make an offensive spell effective against disgustingly affectionate couples-- after she got the Claude thing figured out.

\---

Her sense of objectivity was slipping. That had be the problem. 

The endless cycle of studying, training, fighting, conferencing, repeated as nauseam was making her forget what "cute" really was, and for some reason, her mind must have chosen to latch onto Claude for her essential daily dose of it. 

It was time to correct that, and there was no better way to do it than to...

"Kitty, kitty, come here, kitty~"

...bring Claude to play with a litter of Ordelian kittens, also known as cuteness incarnate, and by extent, get a direct view of the difference between the two. 

"Pspspspspspss~"

"You're a kitty! Yes, you're a kitty~!"

It also had the side effect of dropping both of their intelligence down to zero, but hey. 

She nuzzled a particularly fluffy kitten to her chest, then glanced over at Claude while the fuzzball played with the tassels on her hair decorations. 

"Yes, yes, you're all very cute kitties~"

He held what was practically a bouquet of kittens in his arms, with a few more climbing over his head and shoulders. 

On top of that, his eyes were shut in sheer bliss, his mouth was wide open in a happy grin, and combined with the cats, he was...

"...Super adorable," she muttered out loud, feeling her intelligence dip into the negatives.

"Yeah, I know~" he drawled out, looking happy enough to start purring himself. 

In short, her plan had completely backfired. 

"Pspspspsps~ kitty kitty~"

It was difficult to complain, though. 

\---

"So, why did you suddenly bring me to play with the cats after avoiding me for a whole week?"

They sat in a nice private (save for Linhardt napping nearby) space in the gardens, attempting to pick off cat hair on each other's clothes. 

"Thought it would solve the problem that was causing me to avoid you," Lysithea replied, dusting his sleeves off and not looking at his face. 

"Did it work?"

"...No. I still think you're cute, even in comparison to the kittens."

After a brief pause, Claude began howling with laughter, and her face burned even hotter, especially when she caught a glimpse of his face and thought, oh no, even that stupid beard is cute now. 

"S-stop laughing, it's a serious problem! I can't look at you without thinking of how cute you are, and it's-- it's-- impossible to handle!"

"Well, now you know how I feel at all times!" he managed to reply through the laughter. 

She blinked. 

"You-- think I'm cute?"

"The cutest," he replied, then pulled her into a hug, undoubtedly getting even more cat hair on her. "I mean, otherwise we wouldn't be lovers, right?"

She nodded and nuzzled into his chest, remembering how much she missed it, even though it had only been a week. 

After several moments of listening to his heartbeats, she decided to look up and stare straight at his face, and resolved to not look away this time. 

"...Hey, doing that makes me want to kiss you, you know."

"G-go ahead."

"Holy shit, how can a person be this adorable," he said, probably thinking out loud, before leaning down to catch her lips with his own.

They stayed like that for a while, simply taking in how nice it was to be so close to each other in a perfect day with perfect weather. (She thought she might have heard Linhardt yawning and mumbling, "Get a room, you two," from the corner, but completey ignored it.)

Both of them were out of breath when they parted, and Claude wore a silly grin that wasn't anywhere near handsome or dashing or charismatic or cocky. 

But gods, it was cute, and she suddenly felt okay losing to him all the time, if it meant seeing that expression over and over again. 

"Careful, Lys-- if you keep staring so hard, you just might burn a hole through my head and turn me into a ghost!"

"Claude!!!"

Or not. 

**Author's Note:**

> [LysiClaude week twitter](https://twitter.com/LysiClaudeWeek?s=20)
> 
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/slotumn?s=09)
> 
> That's right, they were actually already dating!
> 
> Anyway I've written a lot of angst lately so I decided that I needed to write something fluffy to make up for it.


End file.
